4.3 Project

• Identifying a community problem solvable with sheet-metal skills
• Designing a sheet-metal item to solve it, from local materials
• Fabricating the sheet-metal item (marking out, cutting, forming, joining, edging)
• Presenting and evaluating the item

• identify a community problem solvable using sheet-metal skills
• suggest and design a sheet-metal item to solve it using local materials
• fabricate the item using the acquired knowledge and skills
• appreciate the importance of sheet-metal processes in solving community problems

“How can sheet-metal skills be used to solve real community problems?”

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1. The sheet-metal project
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   What this project adds to the one in strand 2: developing the shape flat before cutting, forming as well as joining, and presenting the finished item.
2. Finding sheet-metal problems
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   The four jobs sheet metal does well, and how to look for them going undone around a homestead or school.
3. Understanding the problem: stored grain
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   The four ways grain is lost in storage, how a sealed metal tin blocks each of them, and why understanding the problem properly changes the design.
4. The brief and the specification
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Writing the brief for the storage tin and turning it into six specification points that can each be tested.
5. Three designs for the store
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   A rolled cylinder, a folded box and a lined timber bin - three genuinely different answers to the same brief.
6. Choosing the design
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Scoring the three designs against the specification, and reading what the matrix says about where the project will go wrong.
7. Developing the body
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Unrolling a cylinder into a flat rectangle: circumference plus seam allowance for the length, and edge allowances for the height.
8. Developing the bottom and lid
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Two circles, two different allowances, and the radius trap that catches almost everybody once.
9. Checking with a paper model
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Making the whole article in paper first, and the three mistakes it catches before any metal is cut.
10. The bill of materials
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Costing the tin, discovering it is over budget, and the honest ways to bring it back.
11. Sequence and safety plan
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Writing the operation sequence and the risk assessment together, and checking the total fits the lessons available.
12. Marking out and nesting the blanks
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Laying every blank on the sheet before cutting anything, using the factory edge, and planning what the offcut becomes.
13. Cutting the blanks
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Straight snips for straight lines, curved snips for circles, and why a disc is cut by taking the waste off in wedges.
14. Rolling the body
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Curving the sheet a little at a time between rolls, and starting the ends by hand so the seam does not fall on two flats.
15. The grooved side seam
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Closing the long seam of the tin, supporting it from inside, and checking it is straight before it is locked.
16. Fitting the bottom
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    The knocked-up seam that carries the whole weight of the grain, worked right round at each stage.
17. The lid and its fit
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Forming a lid whose turned-down skirt seals over the wired rim, and getting the clearance right.
18. Sealing and finishing a food container
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Soldering every seam, washing the flux completely out, and why the inside of a food tin is never painted.
19. Testing the finished tin
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Working through every specification point with its test, and reporting the ones that do not pass.
20. Presenting and evaluating
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Presenting the finished item in five parts, and writing an evaluation that gives evidence, causes and a specific improvement.